A godlike opponent is less terrifying than a teammate who's a pig.

After a simple meal, he went straight back to the dormitory. Following the manual Teacher Chazhu had sent, Mu Tianchen collected his room card from the first-floor dorm manager, which showed he was assigned to Room 503.

Entering the elevator and arriving on the fifth floor, Mu Tianchen quickly found his room number at the corner and unlocked the door with the key card.

The dormitory's luxury was incomparable to most schools back home. Not only was it a single room, but the interior decoration also featured a neoclassical style, blending modern and classical elements to create a fresh and elegant atmosphere.

The only downside was that the room was only four square meters in size, but for one person, it was still perfectly sufficient.

After fiddling around for a bit, Mu Tianchen lay on the bed and played on his phone.

Over on Ryuen's side—

Ryuen had just finished whipping his class into shape when he opened his phone and saw a new friend request from an unknown contact.

Without a second thought, he hit accept. A trap? So what? The more dangerous, the more it excited him.

Mu Tianchen saw that Ryuen had accepted the request and directly sent over the recording and transfer records he had obtained earlier.

Ryuen looked at the chat log, opened the recording, frowned, and immediately understood what was going on.

"Shi Qi! Get over here!" Ryuen barked at Shi Qi, who was standing guard at the classroom door.

"Huh? What orders does Boss Ryuen have now?"

Shi Qi hurried over to Ryuen's side and crouched down, waiting for his command, terrified of accidentally offending him again.

During the class reorganization, Shi Qi had refused to submit and fought Ryuen, leaving his whole body still aching.

It wasn't that Ryuen was an exceptional fighter; it was that he refused to lose. Others would stop when they got tired, but Ryuen was different—every time he was knocked down, he got back up again and again, as if he had endless stamina.

Who could withstand that? Even Albert, who looked the strongest and was the best fighter in the class, had been subdued by Ryuen this way. Now, except for a few, most of the class feared Ryuen.

"You useless piece of trash! Look at this!"

Ryuen slammed his phone hard onto the table and kicked Shi Qi. The others in the class couldn't help but show panicked expressions.

They had just been forced to hand over their points under Ryuen's coercion, and now this big shot was throwing another tantrum? Everyone feared being the next target.

Shi Qi slowly got up, picked up the phone from the table—thankfully, the school-issued phone was sturdy enough to survive Ryuen's violent slam intact—and looked down at the message content. His pupils instantly dilated, and cold sweat poured down his face.

Ryuen had been too busy reorganizing the class to handle other matters, so he had told Shi Qi how to do it and sent him off. He never expected Shi Qi to mess up even such a simple task.

"Boss Ryuen, I was wrong. Please spare me."

Shi Qi put down the phone, knowing he had screwed up, and knelt on the ground, begging.

"I told you to do a simple little thing with my phone, and you still left evidence! Not only did you forget to delete the transfer records, but you even left the friend request and names intact! Utterly stupid!"

"I... I was afraid they wouldn't do the job properly for you, so I went to meet them in person. As for the friend request, those upperclassmen were worried they might actually get beaten, so they wanted us to reimburse their medical expenses..."

"..." "Forget it, forget it. Get back to your post. If this happens again, I won't let you off!"

"Thank you, Boss Ryuen!"

Shi Qi kowtowed a few times on the ground to thank Ryuen for his great mercy, then went back to standing guard.

Coming back to his senses, Shi Qi felt a wave of relief. When he first saw the phone's content, he had even wondered if Ryuen's personality might lead him to kill him!

Even though this was a school, Ryuen showed no mercy to those in the class who disobeyed him—he basically subdued them with force. The class turned a blind eye, no one willing to report it to the school, no one daring to.

Ryuen picked up the phone from the table again and replied to the other party: [Name your price!]

Mu Tianchen wasn't surprised by the message at all. Since Ryuen had used points to bribe those upperclassmen, he would definitely think of using the same method to shut "his mouth."

But how many points would be appropriate?

He had spent 60,000 himself, so he definitely wouldn't take a loss. After thinking it over, he felt his approach was a bit of a dirty move, so he decided to ask for 360,000 points for good luck. If Ryuen disagreed, he could always lower the demand.

So he sent Ryuen a message: [360,000 points. Transfer them to me, and I'll delete everything.]

[That's quite the lion's share. Fine, but how do I trust you?]

Mu Tianchen had already considered that someone who saw through the school's rules and acted so early couldn't be a simple character, but he was still surprised that Ryuen agreed despite such a high price.

After all, from what he knew, each person only received 100,000 points. 360,000, plus the points Ryuen had used to hire the upperclassmen, totaled 390,000—requiring at least four people to contribute, or he had directly confiscated everyone's points through force or wit?

This was only the first day. If he used wit, it would take at least some time to gain others' trust, so it was highly likely he relied on force.

Thinking this, Mu Tianchen couldn't help but feel a grudging respect.

Although he wasn't afraid of Ryuen in a purely physical confrontation, the fact that Ryuen had thought to cause trouble in other classes from the start showed he wasn't stupid either. This time, he might have gotten lucky by catching their weakness, but next time, such an opportunity might not come again.

Mu Tianchen decided to test him first.

[You've probably figured out the school's mechanism too, right? The school's backend must have records of such large transfers. If I don't keep my word, you can just report it to the school. You understand that taking it that far won't benefit either of us.]

[Of course, this thing isn't a huge threat to you. Given your plan, the best-case scenario was using the supermarket's cameras to capture photos of Sudo fighting, but he didn't act for some other reason, so you didn't get the result you wanted.]

[Even if I hand this over to the school, it's just a minor punishment. But if you don't pay, I'll still give it to the school anyway.]

On the surface, these words seemed to force him to decide whether to pay or not.

But in reality, Mu Tianchen was using them to test whether Ryuen was the class leader and whether he had a macro-level judgment for solving problems.

Without knowing how the school would handle this evidence, even a very light punishment could lead to immeasurable consequences.

If the school chose to handle it with a public reprimand or open announcement, even if it didn't deduct their class points or personal points, the damage would still be greatest.

In Mu Tianchen's view, since they had already made a move against the worst Class D, they would certainly target the higher-ranked classes as well.

Once their actions against Class D were made public, it would directly alert the upper classes. They would inevitably be on guard, and Class C would often miss many opportunities when acting later.

So for a leader overseeing the overall situation, they would definitely not be willing to take this risk.

He's already seen through this much?

Ryuen was slightly surprised by the message he received. Though not entirely accurate, the general idea was correct. The other party had successfully piqued his interest.

[Haha, interesting!]

After sending the message, Ryuen directly transferred the points. Although he hadn't fully consolidated the class yet, he still had 360,000 points on hand.

Ryuen had also considered not giving the points and letting him report it to the school. For something of this level, the school would at most issue a warning or something, or in a serious case, deduct some class points.

But Ryuen didn't want to expose his actions so quickly. At this stage, information was far more important than points. Ryuen didn't mind taking this loss. There would be plenty of opportunities to earn points later, but information wasn't so easy to come by.

[Who are you?]

Though he knew full well that someone with the other's intelligence wouldn't easily reveal their identity, Ryuen still sent this message on a whim. An opponent lurking in the shadows was often the most terrifying.

"As expected?" Mu Tianchen saw the points credited to his phone and had already reached his conclusion from the test. He was about to put down his phone when he received another message from Ryuen.

He wouldn't be foolish enough to directly expose his information. Then, suddenly recalling a line from a Japanese tokusatsu series he used to love, he replied:

[A passing Kamen Rider!]

After sending the message, Mu Tianchen directly deleted Ryuen as a friend, making a perfect exit.

"..."

Ryuen was speechless. He had watched that Rider show before, but saying such chuunibyou lines in high school was truly something else.

He even began to wonder if the other party was just a random passerby who got lucky by chance, or if he was being manipulated by someone else. Had he overestimated him?

Of course, years of experience told him: That's impossible!

So he prepared to send another probing message, but the chat box showed a red exclamation mark. A prompt flashed below:

'You are no longer this person's friend. Please confirm if the identity is abnormal!'

Ryuen: "..."

Mu Tianchen looked at the 395,000 points in his phone and couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth under the covers...